Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a method for preventing damage to a driving system in vehicles. More particularly, it relates to a method for preventing damage to a driving system in vehicles which may occur when driving a 4-wheel drive vehicle.
Description of Related Art
In general, 4-wheel drive, which is a technique of transmitting power to all four wheels in driving a vehicle, may be divided into part time 4-wheel drive and full time 4-wheel drive.
For part time 4-wheel drive, only two wheels are driven in normal times and four wheels are selectively driven on a rough road. For full time 4-wheel drive, the driving force is transferred to the four wheels at all times to drive the four wheels. Full time 4-wheel drive is also called all wheel drive (AWD).
For a vehicle adopting full time 4-wheel drive, both the front wheel axle and the rear wheel axle are connected to the transmission to distribute power of the engine to the front wheels and rear wheels, and a driveshaft is used to transfer driving force to the front wheels.
A typical 4-wheel drive vehicle has a power transmission structure in which the driving force output from the engine is transferred to a transfer case via the transmission and then distributed to the rear wheel side and the front wheel side. Front wheel driveshafts, a front wheel differential and the like are installed between the transfer case and the front wheels. When a 4-wheel drive vehicle is operated by transferring driving force of the engine to the front wheels in addition to the rear wheels, the driving force output from the engine is transferred to the front wheels via the front wheel driveshafts and the front wheel differential.
When a conventional 4-wheel drive vehicle stops on a road, the front wheels of the vehicle contact the road with high friction, while the rear wheels contact the road with a low friction. If the vehicle in this state starts to make a full turn and to move with wide open throttle (WOT), the rear wheels may slip, thereby producing a maximum torque acting as an impact causing damage to the front wheel driveshaft.
When the vehicle makes a full turn, the fracture strength of the driveshafts becomes the lowest and thus the risk of damage to the driveshafts increases.
In the conventional art, the size of the driveshafts is increased to attenuate the risk of damage to the driveshafts caused by a maximum impact torque applied to the driveshafts in a state in which the fracture strength of the front wheel driveshafts is lowered.
However, increase in size of the driveshafts may lead to increase in manufacturing costs and weight of a vehicle, thereby causing deterioration in fuel efficiency. In addition, the layout becomes disadvantageous. Therefore, interference between neighboring components occurs.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.